And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Ezra, We have acted unfaithfully toward our God, and have taken foreign wives of the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing.
Ezra lies weeping in front of God's house because the returned exiles have married women from the nations around them. Then Shecaniah speaks up — first confessing the sin, then saying the damage can still be repaired.
The sin troubled nobody until Ezra arrived and took God's side against it. What followed traces back to one man's willingness to stand alone.
First, it is worth noticing how the Lord uses the faithful zeal of one person to wake others up to their condition. Before Ezra came, everyone's conscience seems to have gone numb... Ezra was alone, and he would have stayed alone if necessary, in taking God's side against the people's sin. But that took courage and a single eye, and by grace Ezra had both. God was with him in the stand he was taking, and now we see the effect. Shecaniah comes forward on behalf of the people, owns their sin, and accepts that they must submit to the Word... In times of evil, the only path of blessing is the path of faithfulness.
Shechaniah says "we," not "they." What makes that costly is the list further on in the chapter: his own father Jehiel is named among the offenders.
Shecaniah, the people's spokesman, shows an energy and selflessness here that ought to be an example to us. His father, Jehiel, was among those who had sinned (v. 26)! Only the power of God, joined to zeal, could make him set aside his own family interests and take up God's cause alone. Yet this energetic man does not try to make a name for himself in the work of restoration. He counts himself as nothing. He judges that the matter rests on Ezra, the "scribe skilled in the Law of Moses"... In his eyes, the man who carries the Word — indeed the Word itself — must play the leading part.
The hope does not rest on excusing what happened. It arrives on the far side of admitting it.
Where there is confession of failure there is hope. Shechaniah put it well: "We have trespassed against our God... yet now there is hope in Israel." I do not think he took it lightly. In fact, his father was among the 'problem cases' (verse 26). He suggests that the confession and prayer should be matched by action (v. 3) — what an encouragement for Ezra (v. 4)!
Others note that this was the only answer God gave. Ezra's prayer drew no voice from heaven, but it drew a voice from among the guilty.
Unlike so many times before, no prophet brings the answer. But God answers in the hearts of the guilty. "We have broken faith with our God," said one among them; "but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this." And they set to work with all their heart.
Ezra could not lift himself out of his grief, and the assembly wept with him. The turn came from somebody else.
His grief was such that he could not rise above it, and even the people "wept bitterly." It was a place of weeping indeed, but tears are not power. Things might have stayed that way. Then one man, Shecaniah, confessed the sin and rose in the strength of faith in God, declaring that there was still hope for Israel. So he urged Ezra to "arise... and do" — to take hold of God, to act on his prayers, and to expect God's help. He did so, and great was the reformation.
But the order runs both ways. Action without self-humbling makes the ruin worse.
Humiliation is not yet separation from evil. It is the road to that separation and prepares for it. But when the work is repairing ruin, activity without humiliation can only lead to more ruin, however zealous it is.
Shecaniah ends his proposal with an appeal to what was written. Nothing else, one writer says, reforms God's people.
Shecaniah also owns the authority of the Word. "Let it be done," he says, "according to the law."... There is, in truth, no other way of reformation among God's people.
Shecaniah's remedy was to send the foreign wives and their children away. That belonged to the law, and one writer draws a sharp line between it and the Christian's case.
Under law, as in the passage before us, the foreign wife and her children were to be sent away. But under grace the unbelieving wife is sanctified by her husband, and the children are holy... The law sent the wives and children away because they were unclean, so Israel could not receive them into the congregation... Under grace the unconverted wife is set apart through her husband. This holiness is purely external and carries no saving power, for salvation is always tied to personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even so, it gives the priceless privilege of being in the place of blessing.
- One — the recovery starts with one man willing to take God's side alone. When every other conscience has gone quiet, faithfulness is still the only path of blessing.
- We — Shecaniah says "we," not "they," though his own father is on the list of guilty men. He owns the people's sin and asks for no part for himself.
- Even now — hope does not replace confession; it comes on the far side of it: "we have broken faith... but even now there is hope."
- Do — tears are not power. Humiliation must move into action, and action without humiliation only deepens the ruin.
- Written — the standard is the Word, not the mood of the moment. That remedy itself belonged to the law; under grace God sets an unbelieving wife apart through her husband.
And now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of [my] lord, and of those that tremble at the commandments of our God; and let it be done according to the law.
Ezra had wept in front of the whole assembly over marriages that broke God's command. Shecaniah answers with a plan: make a covenant with God, send the foreign wives and their children away, and settle it by what is written.
Shecaniah speaks of hope only after he owns the guilt as his own. One writer notes what that cost him: his own father was among the guilty.
Where there is confession of failure there is hope. Shecaniah put it well: "We have broken faith with our God, but even now there is hope for Israel." I do not think he took it lightly. In fact, his father was among the "problem cases" (verse 26). He suggests that action should go with the confession and prayer (v. 3) — what an encouragement for Ezra (v. 4)!
Shecaniah asks for a covenant that would break up homes, including his father's. Another writer draws attention to what he did not ask for — a place at the front.
Shecaniah, the people's spokesman, shows energy and unselfishness that ought to be an example to us. His father, Jehiel, was among the guilty (v. 26)! It took the power of God, joined to the zeal of Phinehas, to make him give up all his own family interests. He took up God's cause alone. Still, this energetic man does not look for a place in the work of restoration. He counts himself as nothing.
The covenant Shecaniah proposes turns grief into a decision. The same writer warns that grief on its own is not enough, and that action without grief makes matters worse.
Humiliation is not yet separation from evil. It is the road to that separation and prepares for it. But when ruin has to be put right, activity without humiliation can lead to nothing but more ruin, however zealous it is. If humiliation has not judged the flesh, the flesh throws off all restraint when evil has to be put away. Such was the zeal of Jehu. This man did not carry the sin of the people as his own before God, and so, once the judgment was carried out, he was the first to go back to the golden calves at Dan and Bethel.
The last clause of the verse decides who sets the terms. Shecaniah invents no remedy of his own; he asks that the written Word settle it.
Notice too that Shecaniah owns the authority of the Word. "Let it be done," he says, "according to the Law." Ezra's mission was to restore the authority of the law over the ways of the people, if not over their hearts and consciences (Ezra 7:10), and God had now given him a helper in Shecaniah. There is truly no other way of reform among God's people.
Weakness and small numbers did not lower the standard.
This devoted and earnest servant of God did not say, "We are only a very small remnant compared with the nation before the exile, so no one can expect us to carry out what is written in God's Word." No! He valued the law of the LORD, and he wanted others to value it too.
Shecaniah's plan sent the children away as well. Commentators point out that this belonged to the law, and that grace works the other way.
Both the wives and the children born to them were to be sent away. The wives were not of Israel, so they were unclean, and the children of these mixed marriages counted as unclean too. This was under law — but under grace all of this is reversed. That does not leave a Christian free to marry someone who is not converted. But as the apostle teaches, "the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy." (1 Cor. 7:14.)
The difference matters most where one partner comes to faith after the wedding.
Under law nothing could turn a Moabite into an Israelite, but under grace an unbeliever may become a believer. This gives no permission at all for a believer to marry an unbeliever, since 2 Corinthians 6:14 plainly forbids it. But if one partner is converted after the marriage, he is encouraged to bring the grace and faith of Christianity into the marriage now, in patient testimony. It may be the means of the other's conversion.
- Confession — Shecaniah says "we," not "they." Hope follows owning the failure, not excusing it.
- Cost — his own father was among the guilty. He still pressed for the remedy, and claimed no leading place in it.
- Action — humbling before God prepares for separation from evil, but is not yet separation. Zeal without that humbling, like Jehu's, only adds to the ruin.
- Standard — "according to the Law" hands the decision back to Scripture. Weakness never lowered what God had written.
- Grace — the law sent the foreign wife and her children away. Under grace the believing partner stays, and the children count as holy.